Well I haven't been to the lake for a while, but today I got up there early (for me) around 3pm and fished until 6. Since the AC minnow bite died off a month or so ago, I've been having a tough time catching fish during the heat of mid-day, but today I think I finally got something figured out. Except for a few casts with the frog, I fished with one rod today. I threw a 1/4oz chrome and blue Luhr Jensen Speed Trap with white bars on the sides on 17lb on my 7'10" loomis. I fished white oak and salsipuedes and caught 9 fish total. 4 were dinks, but the other 5 were between two to three pounds. There was no particular pattern as far as where the fish were but I think I understand what is going on finally. On ALL of my recent trips to the lakes I've seen small schools of shad roving the weedlines. They seem to be cruising the banks, and although they attract most often to the backs of coves, today for example I saw a nice meatball of shad along the open shoreline. Before this crank bite I had caught most of my fish on a shad colored skitter pop between 8-9pm. Matt and I also had been getting "doubles" on a fairly regular basis, indicating that the fish are schooling together. Today I had similar experiences on three fish when a follower bass of about the same size came to the boat chasing the hooked fish. So what's happening is that during mid-day the bass are aggregating into small pods of fish and waiting to ambush the shad along the outer weedlines. It's easier for them to get the shad in a group because one fish can charge the school while the others pick off any stragglers. As to the type of ambush structure the fish are picking, I caught one nice fish that I watched dart out from a under a boulder. Another fish came off some loose outer weedlines with a ragged edge to them. Two others came from submerged weeds on a long flat. All of these pieces of structure offered them a place to lay in wait for the shad. A speed trap burning by (I used a pretty fast retreive) was just the thing to bring them out. It runs about 8 feet down so the bass didn't have to come up in the bright sun to strike. At 8pm when the sun goes down these fish are willing to come to the surface to feed but during mid day you have to get down there to imitate the shad successfully. The water is also pretty clear for Margarita so cranking fast doesn't allow the fish to get a good look at the bait and increases your likelyhood of getting slammed. <BR>Hopefully this helps everyone out who's heading up there, but please remember to catch and release. Of the 5 quality fish I caught today 3 had hook holes in their lips already. Just imagine if we all took them home. IT WOULD SUCK!!! <BR>Good luck out there